Conflicting Amores

Abstract In the first part of this chapter, an examination of Vergil’s introductory portraits of Lavinia, Amata, and Turnus reveals how his extensive engagement with elegiac material problematizes each character along amatory lines: Lavinia, sought after by Turnus and Aeneas, becomes their symbolic battleground; Amata’s name and behaviour point to her unseemly erotic desires; and Turnus is established as an amatory and martial rival to Aeneas. The chapter then proceeds to document Vergil’s conjunction of amatory and funerary elegiac material within Allecto’s sequential infuriations of Amata, Turnus, and Ascanius, his aesthetic approach amplifying the Fury’s powerful perversion of human emotions, as she transforms conflicting passions (amores) into actual violence and devastation. The chapter thus reveals the holistic elegiac atmosphere that pervades Vergil’s account of the origins of the war; on the aesthetic plane, Vergil reinforces his narrative vision of amor as an uncontrollable, lethal force.